In high school, my afternoons were always laid out the same way. When the bell rang at precisely 2:50 p.m., I would gather my books and make my way down to the girl's locker room, accompanied by my classmates who were also on sports teams. Amid a sea of chatter and the sound of banging locker doors, I would simultaneously catch up with friends while quick-changing into running clothes. With socks on our feet and our sneakers still in hand, we would slide onto the wooden floors of the gym to report to practice (because, as usual, we were running late).
Many of my closest friends in high school were members of the cross country and track teams, which I was a part of for six years. Between riding in buses to meets, traveling to places like Disney World, hosting team dinners and running together every day after school, a type of friendship emerges that is truly unlike any other. As BU student Victoria Ponce (QSB ’18), who was a high school cheerleader for four years, put it, "I realize that cheering was a high school thing that I did and it would be too much of a time commitment in college. But I miss being with my best friends, doing something we all really enjoyed."
I am in a sorority at my college, which has given me many of my best friends, similar to how being on a sports team did. But I must admit that there's something about being on a team that is different from being a part of any other organization. Maybe it's because being on a sports team means that your teammates will see you at your absolute worst state.
It's those moments when you would rather jump off a bridge than have your picture taken: whether you're sprinting the final straight-away toward the finish line, getting elbowed in the face while trying to score a basket or skidding through dirt on the field -- your teammates are there to witness it all. But regardless of your tomato-red face, frizzy hair and flailing arms, they are there cheering you on. And odds are they all look like the same disheveled mess too.
In addition to recalling the close bond between you and your teammates, you also reminisce about the shape you used to be in. How I ever ran 75-minute "long runs" is a mystery to me, as these days I would probably definitely collapse at the 40-minute mark. Try as we might to maintain the shape we were in during our high-school-athlete days, when we're not being yelled at by a coach to work out every day, it's hard to maintain enough self-motivation to exercise when there are endless papers to write and meetings to attend.
No matter which sports team you were a part of, all former high-school athletes can attest that being on a team yielded memories to last a lifetime. As BU student Alexandra Osman (ENG ’18), who ran cross country and track for seven years, remembers, “The best part of it all was probably getting to go on so many adventures with my friends as a result of being on the team. We got to travel to Portland, Disney World, New York City and all over the east coast as high school students. Who else can say that’s how they spent high school?”
Quite honestly, I hated the nervous feeling in the pit in my stomach before the gun would go off before a race, or before a hard workout was about to ensue. I used to think that I couldn't wait until college so that I could be free from the anxiety that came with racing. Now, I wish I could be in the back of the bus with my friends, heading off to a meet, just one more time.
